


Be Kind

by Hokuto



Series: (Nice Dream): The Gaps In Between [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 08:23:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4297569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hokuto/pseuds/Hokuto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night of the massacre and the morning after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Kind

Even before ANBU touched down in the Uchiha compound, Kakashi knew they were too late.

"Holy shit," someone in his squad muttered, and a voice from another squad said, "Did they all turn on each other or something?"

The Hokage said nothing. His eyes went from body to body to body. At least twelve in this street alone, by Kakashi's count, and a dead, utter stillness lay over the rest of the district. How many Uchiha had he seen with Gai the last time he'd come here?

"Place is a slaughterhouse."

"Could anyone still be alive in here?"

"I thought we'd end up with a bunch of bodies, but - not like this."

The Hokage said, too softly for anyone but Kakashi to hear, "How cruel. This is not the outcome I wanted..."

"Wait!" Yuugao said, turning her head. "I can sense a faint chakra signature - in that house, over there - a kid, maybe?"

"That's Sasuke."

Half of the assembled squads jumped as Captain Itachi landed in front of the Hokage. "He's only sleeping," Itachi continued, taking one knee in the middle of the bloody street. "Please don't disturb him."

"You!" Danzo rudely shouldered past Kakashi, two of his own ANBU dragged along in tow, to stare down at Itachi. "What are you still doing here?"

"I'm here to report to the Hokage," said Itachi. "Hokage-sama, as ordered, the Uchiha coup has been stopped."

No kidding. Hard to pull off a clan coup with the entire clan dead. Kakashi could have admired the brutal simplicity of the idea if it hadn't become reality.

"What - all by yourself?" one of the ANBU said.

Itachi's eyes flickered to the speaker, and she stepped back. "I would prefer not to disclose the details at the present moment," he said.

He had been in Kakashi's squad. He had worked with Kakashi for almost two years. _I knew he was suited for ANBU, but this - this is beyond reason... Just what kind of monster did I help raise?_

"Itachi." The Hokage's voice held steady, which was more than Kakashi could have managed at that moment. "What have you done? I never meant for you to take this burden on your own. Why didn't you wait?"

"I wanted to avoid any risk to the village, sir."

"Avoid risk?" Danzo growled. "You've just brought more danger to Konoha with your foolish actions. Staying here to -"

"Be silent!" The Hokage turned to glare at Danzo. "Don't think that I've forgotten your part in this. Keeping the Uchiha isolated and under constant surveillance, refusing to trust them or negotiate... Following your policies is what brought us to this point!"

"Hiruzen. You know that my only interest lies in protecting -"

"I told you to be silent!" The Third's presence whipped out and knocked the breath from Kakashi, and it wasn't even aimed at him; its full force was focused on Danzo, whose stance wavered briefly. "You've always claimed that you and your ANBU are the roots supporting this village, but tonight you've choked the life from one of our strongest branches. As of this moment, Root is dissolved. All of its members will report to me the day after tomorrow for reassignment, and you - go to your quarters. You're confined there until I have time to question you about what's happened. Now get out of my sight."

Despite the weight of the Hokage's anger pressing down on them all, Danzo hesitated before he bowed and left, walking away with a straight back as if he hadn't just been told to go to his room like a child.

The pressure faded slowly, and Kakashi breathed in deeply, then regretted it. The air was thick with the stench of a battlefield, nothing he'd ever wanted to smell in Konoha itself. "Hokage-sama," he said, "what do you want us to do?"

"What is there left to do? Clean it up. I don't want any of the civilians wandering in here and seeing a scene like this. Captain Itachi, come with me; I want your full report on - on the situation."

"With your permission," said Itachi, "I would prefer to participate in the clean-up."

"Haven't you done enough for one night?" The Hokage rubbed his temples, sighing. "My apologies, Captain. Do what you want. But please report to my office as soon as you can tomorrow. It seems that we've got a lot to talk about."

"Yes, sir."

The Third departed for the tower with Yuugao and an ANBU from a different team for guards, and Kakashi took charge: this squad to search for bodies - as if they were hard to find - that squad to count up the corpses and make sure every Uchiha was accounted for, rotations to take them to the morgue until someone (who? Itachi? His brother, the little kid?) could sort out funeral arrangements.

He didn't give Itachi any orders. He couldn't bring himself to look at Itachi or the blood on his hands, and then Itachi was in his ear, saying, "Captain -"

"Don't call me that." Not where the rest of ANBU could hear, not with a whole clan dead at the hands of their own prodigy. _Don't pretend for a moment that I had anything to do with this. With you._

"Could you assist me with the clean-up for a minute?"

 _Hell no_ , was Kakashi's first violent response, but he shoved it down. Not his family. Just Obito's, what had been left of it, and that was barely a connection at all. "Sure."

They went into one of the nearby houses, the one where Yuugao had sensed life. At closer range, if he concentrated, Kakashi could sense it, too: the gentle glow of a sleeping kid's chakra. Itachi went past it, moving through the house with easy familiarity, and opened a pair of doors to a large, empty room where two corpses lay slumped over each other. One man, one woman. Uchiha Fugaku and Mikoto. What an honor, he got to help Itachi clean up the bodies of his own parents. Was it some kind of punishment, or just Itachi's skewed idea of a joke?

Itachi reached for Mikoto's body, so Kakashi got a grip on Fugaku's and rolled it over for a quick inspection. One mortal wound, no defensive injuries... "There's a surprise. Looks like they didn't put up a fight."

"They didn't."

_Drip._

Oh, no. No. That absolutely couldn't be the sound Kakashi thought it was. He glanced over and saw a second tear fall into Mikoto's hair. _Damnit_.

One of ANBU's chief unspoken rules was that other people's emotions were off-limits. You checked in to make sure they weren't checking out in the middle of a mission, you listened if they came to you first, but if they didn't want to tell, you didn't ask and you didn't gossip about it. Everyone had enough of their own issues to carry without barging in to grab someone else's. For an entire second he wished Gai were there, because Gai, for all his hot-headed faults, would have some idea of what to do, but in the next second he shook the desire off. Gai didn't deserve this. It was ANBU business, after all. "Hey -"

"These are the only two in this house," Itachi said with an eerie serenity. "Please try not to make too much noise, so that Sasuke doesn't wake up."

So much for checking in. "Got it." He heaved Fugaku's body over his shoulders and followed Itachi back to the body drop-off point, watching Mikoto's loose, blood-clumped hair sway with Itachi's noiseless steps.

They laid the bodies down next to the others already gathered, and Itachi said, "Thank you for your assistance, Kakashi-san. I believe I can manage from here."

Kakashi could have offered to help with the next set of bodies. He could have said that he'd keep an eye on Sasuke, as a favor for a former teammate. If he had to stand within five feet of Uchiha Itachi for another minute, he was going to do something that would deeply piss off the Third, specifically punch Itachi in his expressionless face. "All right," he said. "Fox, stick with Captain Itachi in case he needs a hand," and he leaped away to hunt corpses with Tenzo before Itachi could say anything else.

* * *

When the remains of the Uchiha had all been collected, Kakashi drew the lucky short straw and went to tell the Hokage it was finished. The sun was well up and the streets already busy; he watched the crowds, but there was no unusual activity or restlessness. Good. No one had let the word slip out, and the official announcement hadn't been made yet.

The Third listened to the report with the final tally of the Uchiha dead impassively, his hands folded over a file on his desk and the Hokage's hat shading his eyes. At the end, he said, "I appreciate your efforts, Kakashi." And in a nearly casual voice, "How long has it been since you joined ANBU?"

"About ten years, sir."

"Is that so..." The Hokage sat back in his chair. "Minato promoted you into ANBU so he could keep you at his side, if I'm remembering right. He wanted to stay close to you, so that you wouldn't lose yourself in grieving... But Minato's ANBU became my ANBU, and I needed you for a different purpose."

"Sir?"

"You've served the village well all this time, Kakashi, but I fear that I've relied on you too much against your own interests. ANBU is no longer the kind of organization that can help you, if it ever was. I've been thinking that it's time to let you step down from ANBU and become a jounin teacher, like your friends. It would be a better place for you, I'm certain, and yet - we're in a very delicate position right now, thanks to this incident." His mouth twisted on the final word. "As much as I would like to release you from ANBU today - can this old man lean on you for a little while longer?"

"Of course, Hokage-sama." Leaving the place that Minato-sensei had made for him, one of their only remaining connections - it tasted sour in his mouth, but. Some of the bodies they'd carried out of the Uchiha compound had been small. None of them had been light. Maybe ten years was too long a time to serve in ANBU.

"It's only for a few weeks, I hope," said the Hokage. "By then we should have ourselves re-established. I'll try not to ask too much of you, although there is one thing..." He leaned forward to open the file in front of him, but he didn't look at it, or into Kakashi's eyes. "If it's at all possible, please - be kind to Itachi."

"After what he's just done?" Too harsh. Still, of all the things the Hokage could ask of him, to go easy on someone whose body-count he'd just had to clean up...

"Who bears the most blame? The knife? The one who threw it? Or the one who ordered them to throw it?"

Which one was Itachi supposed to be? Kakashi suspected his answer to that question wouldn't match the Hokage's current feelings and kept his mouth shut on his instinctive reply.

The Third sighed heavily. "I know it's a heavy thing to ask. Perhaps too much to ask of anyone, especially right now. But if you can - just don't treat him like an enemy. He wasn't acting without orders, and more divisions are the last thing that Konoha needs. Damnit, half of our strength is gone..." He put one hand over his eyes. "What am I going to tell the village? What can I say to that little boy?"

This wasn't going down on Kakashi's list of the worst days in his life for a few different reasons, but if he never heard tears in the Third's voice again it would be too soon. "Hokage-sama -"

"You can go, Kakashi. If you see Captain Itachi, tell him it's past time for him to report in. And I'll need to speak to his younger brother, as well."

"Yes, sir."

He went to the Uchiha compound first, more to make sure it was locked down properly than to pass on the Hokage's message - he neither knew nor cared where Itachi was - but the gates were half-open instead of sealed. Tenzo was standing guard and waved as Kakashi approached. "I know you ordered the compound sealed off, sempai," Tenzo said, "but Itachi's - I mean, Captain Itachi is inside, and he asked me to leave it open for a while."

"What's he still doing in there?"

"Honestly? I have no idea and I really didn't want to ask. He just said he had to take care of a few things and asked if I could watch the gate for him."

"Well, you can't refuse an order," Kakashi said. "Keep the area clear - is Fox still with him?"

"He was an hour ago, anyway. Uh, and good luck."

In the daylight the compound almost looked normal, if deserted. A civilian might not even spot the scuff-marks over buried bloodstains in the street, or the fresh cracks from kunai and shuriken in the walls that hadn't been plastered over. And never would be, probably. No one would want to move into those houses or shops after the news got out.

Kakashi found the house from the previous night; on a hunch, he knocked his fist against the front door and called out, "Anyone home?"

"Kakashi-san?" Itachi's voice came from somewhere in the depths of the house. "Come in, the door isn't locked. I'll meet you in the kitchen; Fox is washing some of the floors right now."

He stepped through the door and automatically started to slip his sandals off before he remembered. Crime scene. It was a crime scene, not a home. He kept his sandals on and stepped into the kitchen, where he saw a stack of storage scrolls on one counter and a barely touched breakfast on the table. No bloodstains to mop up in this room.

Itachi came in a minute later with a laundry basket full of clothes. "If you're hungry, please help yourself to breakfast," he said, setting the basket down next to the table. "I'm afraid I made a little too much, and Sasuke ran out without eating anything... He can be too impulsive sometimes."

The amount of food on the table could have fed four. "What are you, a housewife?" Hell, Itachi still had half his ANBU armor on while he was doing chores; no wonder the kid had run for it.

"Well, I do have to take care of Sasuke now," Itachi said. "It's a lot of responsibility." He opened one of the storage scrolls and laid it flat on the floor, then took a pair of pants out of the basket, shook them out, folded them, and placed them on the scroll.

Kakashi leaned against the door's frame. "You're late for your meeting with the Hokage, you know."

"Then I'll have to apologize. I wanted to finish this first before I gave my report."

Kakashi didn't want to ask, any more than Tenzo had, but he did anyway. "What are you doing here?"

Itachi pulled out a shirt and shook it. Too small for him, or even for the Itachi of two years ago when he'd joined ANBU. One of the little brother's shirts, then. He folded it into a neat square and placed it on top of the pants. "Packing. It's a little unreasonable for the two of us to stay in this house alone, so we'll have to move into one of the reserved apartments. There won't be room for everything, though; I'll have to do some sorting later. Are you sure you wouldn't like something to eat? I don't want to waste the food, but it won't travel well."

Another small shirt plucked from the basket, shaken, folded, stored, as clear morning light warmed the kitchen. This was the genius the Uchiha had favored, the boy blessed with all of the clan's gifts, while they had turned their backs on Obito the weak, the screw-up, the perpetually late. Which one would they have wanted the night before?

"You remember your first real ANBU mission, don't you?" Kakashi said. "Ah, of course you do. Funny how things change. Now you're the captain and I'm the one asking questions you'd rather not answer."

"Hmm." A second pair of pants to shake and fold and add to the scroll. "If we're counting, then I think you have at least one question left before we're even."

"Did I ever know you at all?" Some good the sharingan was. Some good he was. Two years working with Itachi on every kind of mission and Kakashi still hadn't seen the massacre in him. Neither had anyone else, apparently, but that fact couldn't take the sick weight off Kakashi's shoulders. He had been Itachi's captain. He should have known what Itachi was capable of under orders.

Itachi folded another shirt and laid it on the scroll, the Uchiha fan on the back facing up. "I've heard," he said, "that you don't truly know who you are until the moment you die. That would make it difficult to really know anyone else, wouldn't it?"

What a morbid piece of philosophy. Seriously, who the hell had said that?

"But I was never dishonest with you, Kakashi-san. Whatever your opinion of me is, I'm sure it isn't inaccurate."

"So if my opinion of you," Kakashi said, "is that you're a little creep, would you call that accurate?"

Itachi pulled out yet another shirt, this one with a hole in the shoulder, and he put it aside without folding. "I would say that it isn't the word I expected you to use."

Now there was a weasel answer. It wasn't a katana through his chest, either, and in a way that was also an answer. "I think I've had more productive conversations with the memorial stone." Kakashi pushed off from the doorframe and turned away. "I'm going. Don't keep the Hokage waiting much longer."

"I should be done soon, but - if you have time, Kakashi-san, could you please see that Sasuke is safe at school? I'm certain that's where he went this morning, but I haven't had time to check on him myself, and Fox insisted on staying close to me. For some reason."

Why not? He had nothing else to do. The Third thought he should leave ANBU and Danzo had been fired - not that Kakashi was going to cry over that - and he had spent all night hauling dead bodies. Why not go see if some kid was cutting class? It was obviously the next logical step after everything else. "All right," Kakashi said. "I'll even bring him to the Hokage's office for you after school's out, if you want."

"That would be kind of you."

He hadn't meant it, but oh well, since he'd offered... He was getting as bad as Obito. "Sure, Captain." Kind, huh, and the words _I never should have allowed you in my squad_ rose to the front of his mind.

But Itachi hadn't put a kunai in his throat, so Kakashi didn't put one in his heart. Metaphorically speaking, and assuming Itachi had a heart. Damn, he was tired, letting himself think that way.

He left Itachi alone in the sunlit kitchen, still folding clothes while three untouched meals slowly cooled.

* * *

The academy was at its usual level of noisy bustle, filled with kids at various stages of shinobi training who were somehow managing not to kill each other accidentally or on purpose. Kakashi spotted Gai among the teachers and didn't approach him. Not yet. Not till after he'd had a chance to wash last night off him and sleep; maybe then he'd be able to face Gai.

Uchiha Sasuke wasn't hard to spot, either, even from Kakashi's slightly removed vantage point in a tree outside the classroom. Sasuke sat at a desk with the rest of his year, and his teacher could be forgiven for assuming he was paying attention. Eyes forward, taking notes, but he kept fidgeting with the pencil in his left hand, and once the knuckles of his right hand ended up in his mouth. He had to have some idea of what had happened, but not enough, or he couldn't have managed the calm to be in school; whatever the Third decided to do with the last two Uchiha, it wasn't going to bring back their clan. Hell of a thing to dump on someone of any age.

Unlucky kid. Unlucky twice over, to lose all the rest of his family only to be stuck with a brother like Itachi.

Kakashi settled more comfortably into the tree. He'd have to take Sasuke in to the Hokage's office at some point, but he hadn't been given a time to do it by, either. He could fit in a decent nap before school let out, and Sasuke could spend a couple more hours without his dead family's shadows following him everywhere. Not the kind of favor Kakashi would ever get thanked for, but what the hell, if he couldn't be kind to Itachi, at least he could manage something like it for the kid.

He closed his eye and Obito's and dozed off.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I wrote this mostly as catharsis for all of my "THIS IS NOT OKAY" feelings about watching Shippuden 358-9, so you don't have to read it for the rest of the AU. Unless you're really into Kakashi being 1000% done with Uchihas. I tend to be 50/50 when it comes to the anime on whether I consider it canon or not, but sometimes it does give me things I want to work with. ... and Danzo getting told to go to his room like a naughty child. How satisfying was that? SO FUCKING SATISFYING.
> 
> The official subtitle for this fic is "literally everything is horrifying and awkward and the only reason this isn't Kakashi's Worst Night/Day Ever is because he's had _so many worse ones_." Oh, Kakashi. Your life is hard.
> 
> Is this a sign that "(Nice Dream)" is finally coming off hiatus? ... _maybe_.


End file.
